A complete guide to mining Monero with GPU

Instructions for those keen on mining one of the most popular altcoins.

Mining Monero (XMR/USD) is as easy as mining Zcash and Ethreum (ETH/USD). Great news: you can do this even with CPU on your old laptop. In this manual we will take a closer look at Minergate and Claymore miner installation (CPU version is called CryptoNote).

For AMD owners mining Ethreum makes the best profit, however, Monero stands out due to several unique characteristics – above all, confidentiality level . The currency is quite popular and periodically there are strong price increases.

The installation and configuration process takes less than 20 minutes. Here is why you should try mining Monero:

Mining allows you to earn money for a new GPU (or several).

Monero is easy to exchange for Bitcoins. This is a cheap way to gradually accumulation one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in your portfolio.

Bitcoin can be easily exchanged for fiat money. Thus, Monero mining allows you make actual money and see it in your bank account. In addition, some exchanges exchange Monero for dollars.

An experienced and/or successful miner can make good money on fluctuations, especially given the periodic sharp falls.

Since Monero became well-know in DarkNet in 2016, it remains one of the most expensive cryptoassets on the market.

Monero mining on the CryptoNote algorithm consumes less electricity compared with mining on Ethash / Dagger Hashimoto (Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, UBQ) and Equihash-based coins (Zcash, Zencash, Hush). You will be able to extend equipment’s service life due to the fact that the temperature will not be critical.

Finally, Monero mining gives you an advantage if the price of crypto currency grows in the future – with less risk than with a normal purchase.

“Buy cheap – sell expensive” principle is used for mining and accumulating the asset. However, most miners do not understand technical analysis and do it at the wrong time (in other words, they buy after the price leaps and sell at the peak of correction).

In mining computer becomes an asset that generates profit. In addition, its value in the secondary market is kept at a high level and even grows. In 2018 you could sell the GPUs purchased for mining in 2015-2017 at a higher price than the purchase price due to high demand.

In other words, you can earn good money by mining cryptocurrency and selling the equipment as soon as it becomes obsolete. In this case, you will be able to get what you paid for it in the first place and the coins produced become a pleasant bonus.

What is the difference between Monero and Bitcoin blockchains

Monero uses a different hashing algorithm that is incompatible with specialized microcircuits (ASICs) designed for bitcoin mining. The Monero algorithm is called CryptoNight. It has high RAM characteristics which makes it impossible to use ASIC.

Monero is designed especially for CPU and GPU mining. Its protocol based on ring signatures designed to make it the leading anonymous cryptocurrency (together with Dash and Zcash). Monero blocks are generated approximately every 2 minutes, unlike 10 minutes for Bitcoin.

Hashing speed, difficulty and price

Since the launch in the 4Q 2016, the overall hashing speed has been growing rapidly.

If the computing power in the Monero network is constantly growing, why is the blocks generation time is not reduced and remains 2 minutes? The growing mining difficulty is to blame for this. Monero blockchain automatically adjusts mining difficulty to network capacity, so that blocks are generated approximately every 2 minutes. The mining difficulty depends on the network capacity. This year it is experiencing an exponential growth.

The obvious question is: why does hashing speed and difficulty grow at this rate? The answer is quite simple: the price!

The thing is that the computing power follows the price leap, which led to summer 2017 altcoin boom. In September Monero leaped by another 350%. The Cryptocurrency has demonstrated remarkable growth. In just a few months its price increased from $40 to $160.

Monero Profitability Calculation

Now that we have some information on Monero blockchain, it’s time to do some math.

The whattomine.com website provides the latest data on the current price, block generation time and hash speed of the network.

Choose your GPU, enter their number and click “Calculate”. The site will display the current hashing speed and profitability (select CryptoNight algorithm for Monero mining).

Over time these numbers will change, but let’s assume that depending on the model and configuration 1 GPU makes 1 usd daily.

Choosing hardware

Experimenting with different GPUs will help you find the best price/performance /power ratio (in megahashes per cost unit). AMD cards usually outperform NVIDIA models in Ethereum mining using EthashAlgo client. In the case of Equihash and EWBF Miner, AMD are not that different from NVIDIA. Both brands can be used for Monero mining.

One of CryptoNight’s advantages is CPU mining. A powerful Intel i5 or i7 CPU is suitable for mining Monero.

If you decide to buy a used graphics card preferably buy in from a gamer, not a miner and check is if still has a warrantee. Carefully compare the performance, power consumption, availability and cost of different GPUs.

AMD RX 570 with RAM 4 GB is a good choice for those on a tight budget.

Monero mining on a Windows OS PC

Let’s take a look at mining Monero on Windows 10, but you can also use Windows 7, 8, Linux and Mac OS.

Install the latest GPU drivers

RX 5XX: since these are brand new GPUs, it is recommended to use the latest driver.

NVIDIA GPUs

GeForce drivers are available on a their website. Enter your video card model and click “Start Search”.

Select the current version, download it, install and restart the computer. If device manager shows no warnings next to video card, then the driver has been installed successfully.

Some miners install several GPU and only after that configure the drivers. Others prefer to deal with one GPU first, install drivers and add the rest of the GPUs (of course, the PC has to be shut off).

If one of the methods failed, uninstall the drivers and try again.

The next part of this manual assumes the use of MinerGate. Some users have complained about the developer, so use it at your own risk. If you do not want to use MinerGate, go directly to step # 4.

Register on Minergate

For mining on all computers (including laptops) and GPUs, you must register on Minergate website. Click “Registration” in the upper right corner and enter your email and password.

Download Minergate

The next step is to download the software. Click “Downloads” and the site will offer a suitable version (for Mac, Windows or Linux). Download and install Minergate. After the installation is complete, launch the program, enter e-mail address and password used for registering on the site and click “Start Mining”.

Then click “Start Smart Mining” – the program will select the most profitable cryptocurrency for mining and start mining. That’s all actually (this software makes in quite simple).

The printscreen above shows mining on an old laptop with Intel i7 2630 processor and integrated graphics. The printscreen below shows mining on Intel Celeron 1840 with four AMD RX 470 graphics accelerators. Ultimately, the results will depend on equipment characteristics.

Mining at the click of a mouse is very encouraging, because you do not need to go deep into configurations and work with bat-files. Just click the button and you are already earning money…

Next, we will tell you how to make the best of Monero mining and raise equipment productivity almost 2.5 times.

Advanced level: Fine configuration of Monero mining equipment

NVIDIA

Use the EWBF miner for NVIDIA GPUS, but if you have a powerful processor (Intel i5, i7 or AMD analog), you can mine on it using Minergate. The Minergate platform does not conflict with EWBF or Claymore miners, so you can mine several coins at the same time.

AMD

Claymore miner will take you to the next level if you mine on AMD GPUs as it is optimized for the CryptoNight algorithm.

For installation go back to the Minergate downloads page, scroll down and go to Alternative Miners.

Download the bat-file for XMR by clicking on the right. Go back up and go to bitcointalk (reminder: download miners only from official bitcointalk threads). Download the miner and extract it to the desktop.

Copy the previously downloaded bat file to Claymore CryptoNote folder on desktop. It should be in the same directory as the executable program file.

Windows configuration

You will have to change some Windows settings before you get down to mining. Firstly, disable sleep mode as it will interrupt the program. Go to the “Power pan settings” and choose “Sleep mode” to “Never”.

Then change the size of the swap file to 16384 MB (16 GB). Disable the Windows update system to minimize miner failure and system intervention. If it is active, the system will automatically download updates, install them and reboot, and that will interfere with the miner.

If you use Windows Defender or any other antivirus program, add an exception so that it does not take the miner for the virus and block it.

Run the miner

After completing the Windows setup, run the miner by double-clicking on the bat file created earlier. If the Windows Firewall displays warning or error, confirm your choice. Claymore CryptoNote will boot and begin to mine Monero.

Monero GPU hashrate

In our Minergate example four RX 470 cards computed approximately 1,000 hashes per second, with Claymore the performance increased to 2,400 x/s. This is almost 2.5 times more! The Claymore client has proved to be very successful with AMD GPUs.

In addition, Claymore is operating under the Minergate account, so you can run the Minergate for CPU mining

Follow the results

You can track miner activity and overall results on official Minergate website. Click “Withdraw” to transfer the received Monero to another wallet or exchange.